Virtual and Mobile — Along Country Roads

This post has been building in my head for a couple months. Today’s experience simply adds another pleasant and reinforcing facet to the way I work and live. The way many of my virtual associates work and live.

Since 2003, I’ve worked ‘on the run’. When we traveled to visit family in other states, I took my tools with me. I would spread it all out in motel rooms and dining room tables across the mid-west and western states. Client’s never knew where I was located…that is one of the beauties of outsourcing for clients. They don’t have to keep track of where I am working at a given hour, only concentrate on the work they need to have done.

Currently, my tasks spread across blogging, website design and maintenance and a phone specialist for scheduling. The data package on my smart phone keeps me in touch when I’m away from my home base office. Pinky, the power bank, has been a valuable tool to help keep the phone well charged while working in the car.

Along Country Roads

Recently, a car stopped along the country road passing by my home office. I walked out to see if the person needed help. The lady in the car told me she is a traveling nurse. Her clients needed to talk to her ‘right now’ and her car was her office! She was probably parked along our road for an hour. We had a very short chat as I told her that I could relate to her work because I do that too! She was busy so I didn’t ask her if she had one of Pinky’s relatives for a power source. Or if she used a super charger similar to the one I have to keep my laptop in peak operating ability as I travel.

Making a connection with someone outside my physical network, but a part of the virtual network made my whole day happier. Working virtually since 2003 has never been anything but highly rewarding in experience as well as money. Early on, other virtual professionals who had been in the trenches of outsourcing work told me to emphasize skills that I enjoy the most. Enjoying what I do for money adds to the value my work brings to me.

To have met this lady while she worked in her vehicle added to the pleasure of our encounter.

Mobile Tools Work at Home

Just because Pinky is one of my most valuable mobile tools doesn’t mean there are not tasks for her when we are not in a moving vehicle. When I work in my office, I keep the power bars and outlets that I need for the computers, phones, tablets, bluetooth headsets and other tools close at hand. The tools are often plugged in while we work. Out of the office, I don’t like to have a maddening string of cords running all around. Those cords are almost always in the path to and from the table or desk where I am working. I have extremely stressful visions of dragging my beloved computer or phone off of a desktop to dire ends!

Occasionally I try to work away from the desk at my home office with similar issues. Virtual professionals like to be able to take the work out onto a veranda or into another room. These may seem like little things, but they are not. Being able to move around the house as well as around the world and still work virtually is the foundation of why we chose this career path over others.

Tools like Pinky (or whatever color you’ve chosen for your small, portable power bank) make the work spot choices work better for us. With them, we can provide the professional services we studied and polished to offer. And provide these services very well to the benefit of clients. Clients who don’t care if we work on the moon as long as we get their task accomplished.

Dependable, But Pay Attention

When I first began using Pinky, I was a little alarmed by the way the power bank seemed to get hot when it was plugged into the wall to restore the storage. I still am careful to plug it in for short times, let it cool down, then plug it in again. I have learned that this heat is part of the charging activity and when the cells are fully charged, Pinky is not hot or even warm when plugged into the electricity source. This makes me feel easier about using Pinky, but I still try to keep the charging time broken into two or three sessions.

I highly recommend this product. I have enjoyed my little ‘Pinky’. I was fortunate to find a safe, snap-top box in my cupboards which make a wonderful case for Pinky and at least one out-going micro-usb power cord. This case, along with another travel tool, fits snuggly into a soft-sided lunch bag that I don’t use any more. My tools have their own ‘brief case’ to protect them and keep me organized.

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